Slice of Life: A society of hand ups or hand outs?

One thing I share with my husband is a strong work ethic. We jokingly tell people that work is our hobby. We enjoy the results of our efforts, and I’m not just referring to the financial aspects. There are also benefits of community involvement, having a purpose for each day and being able to share resources with friends and family as we give back. We have been blessed with being able to see opportunities and follow up on them. But we also have experienced times when opportunities were not plentiful. Times we had to learn to think outside the box to make ends meet.

Sometimes there are hard times in life. I saw that as a social worker, and I can still see it today. During these days of rising costs to meet basic needs to survive: food, shelter, clothing, transportation. It’s for these days we have social service programs, and community resources to help cover the gaps people in our community experience.

Since COVID was here I have seen more of an expectation from some toward these services. A sense of entitlement. And it’s given me pause to wonder, when did we move from a society looking for a hand up in crisis versus a perpetual hand out?

When my sister was a young married mom, with two children under three years of age, her husband took the proverbial trip out to buy milk and disappeared. He was found in another state but was not man enough to stand up to his duties as a father. My sister, digging deep to find her strength and strong work ethic, went back to school. I have always admired her stamina to care for her children and study to become a respiratory therapist at the same time. Not an easy curriculum or profession. But with the help of family, PELL grants and Head Start Child care, she made ends meet and accomplished her goal. She went on to become employed in a career that paid her good wages and she raised her family and is still working today in her chosen field.

Why do I mention this? Because I see how a well placed hand up helped my sister become an independent member of society and a long term taxpayer. She set a remarkable example for her children who inherited her work ethic and are successful in their chosen careers. She has been working and paying back to society through her taxes, for the benefits she utilized to graduate and keep her family safe. I call that a win-win.

As a Medicaid case manager, one of my tasks was to approve people for SNAP benefits, aka food stamps. It was staggering to see how many rules apply to these benefits, how calculating the amount of the benefit was dependent on income and expenses. According to the laws when I was working, if a person made any money, even cashing in recyclables for cash, they were to report the income, and this would decrease their benefits. It was interesting to see how many people felt they were entitled to benefits and income and so refused to report. This is just one example I saw in my daily work, and it was a bit frustrating to me because there is not an endless supply of money to provide these benefits to the people who truly need the hand up. This goes for medical care, college funding, housing, all the benefits the government has begun to supply to people.

When did the government become the supplier of all needs? At what point do we have more people requesting help than people working to pay the taxes to supply the money to meet the needs? Is this part of what we are seeing in our post-COVID world? A change in the collective work ethic of society? Where are the workers? Without earners to pay taxes, how do we meet this increasing need? How can our Democratic Republic meet the demands?

To quote Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish judge from the 1800’s, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

Stumbling across Tytler’s quote changed how I listened to the candidates speaking in the primaries and those lining up for the upcoming campaign season. It reminded me of the 2020 Presidential campaign and the promise to write off college tuition for some, which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional, but triggered a flood of young voters, worrying over staggering educational costs, to rise up and vote for a particular candidate.

Remember the old adage that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime? It will be interesting to see how Americans respond in the coming election cycle. Will we be looking for a hand up or a handout? Will we maintain a strong democratic republic or demand more free stuff continuing the landslide towards a dictatorship?

Chelle is a recovering social worker who currently works as a licensed massage therapist at Cherry Creek Myotherapy. She moved to Montana with her husband David and two pups, Lucas and Turner, where they seek “the quiet life” amid new adventures.